Superior court judge sides with governor on state worker furloughs

A Sacramento County Superior Court Judge ruled today that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger can impose mandatory furloughs on state employees working for other statewide elected officials.

Back in December, Schwarzenegger issued an executive order requiring all state workers to take two days off each month without pay to save the cash-strapped state $1.4 billion.

But other statewide elected officials such as Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, Attorney General Jerry Brown and Treasurer Bill Lockyer argued that the governor doesn’t have such authority because each of them was independently elected in a statewide election.

However, Superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette today sided with Schwarzenegger, which means roughly 15,000 state employees who work for those officials will also have to take two unpaid days off each month through June 2010.

But state workers represented by the Service Employees International Union Local 1000, which is nearly half of the state’s workforce, will only have to take one furlough day a month as part of a contract agreement they brokered with the administration last month. Under that plan, those workers would take one day off each month without pay and lose two paid state holidays (President Lincoln’s Birthday and Columbus Day).